Sharing cinematic experiences one movie review at a time…plus, something extra here and there

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Welcome to a review of another YA movie. This time around, it’s Midnight Sun.

IMDb summary: A 17-year-old girl suffers from a condition that prevents her from being out in the sunlight.

Midnight Sun was written by Eric Kirsten and directed by Scott Speer (whose previous teen dramedy – Status Update – came out only around a month ago). It’s actually a remake of a Japanese film Song to the Sun. Yes, foreign YA movies are joining foreign actioners and thrillers as the second genre that Hollywood loves to reboot. In general, I have noticed that my enjoyment of teen/YA pictures depends as much on their quality as on my personal psychological state when watching them. My state was neutral today, so the movie seemed okay too. I definitely rolled my eyes as many times as I genuinely smiled.

Thematically, this movie was similar to Everything Everything in that both of them had a sick girl in the lead. However, while that movie had a twist that led to a happy ending, Midnight Sun had a ballsier ending closer to that of Me Before You. I swear I watch too many movies cause my reviews are literally just me commenting on movies using other films. Anyways, there were a lot of things to love in the script of this film. The portrayal of teenage life was accurate, while the girl’s awkwardness when talking to her crush – incredibly relatable. It was also awesome to see such an open and loving father-daughter relationship on screen. The ultimate message to live life was either cheesy, inspirational or both.

My two main dislikes in the writing were the fact that the girl’s choice not to tell her boyfriend that she was sick seemed like a cheap trick to build conflict rather than a profound and important decision. Similarly, on the character development front, the movie didn’t practice what it preached. The film’s message was that people shouldn’t be defined by one thing, like a sickness or a sport. However, the movie kinda went against that message because it didn’t give its characters much more than just that one defining feature. The main girl got a dead mom and a passion for music so that’s something, but the guy was just a swimmer. Basically, one more rewrite of the script to flesh out these details might have been beneficial.

Bella Thorne played the lead girl in the film and did a good job. I found her dramatic performance quite believable. She also did a good job with the signing even though I don’t think that her voice is that good. Charlie’s Song was a really a lovely pop track. Rob Riggle was also really great as the father. He had one excellent speech that he nailed.

Patrick Schwarzenegger, the son of Arnold Schwarzenegger played the romantic lead and was also fine. The fact that his character was a swimmer made the movie 10 times more enjoyable for me, as a someone who hasn’t left the pool since she was 7 (that’s 14 years in the water). Though, I did chuckle seeing him swimming in those couple of scenes. Not only wouldn’t he get into Berkeley with that, I don’t think a Division III school would even accept him. But, I guess, that’s just a personal gripe – the same one that, for example, actual doctors have when watching the cinematic versions of medical procedures.

In short, Midnight Sun was a perfectly fine YA drama. I have been watching quite a few of those lately and this one was certainly not the worst.